David Waters: Memphis church meets code violation, complaints with hospitality

Marcus Mitchell makes an origami bird while sitting among the beds set out for the homeless staying at Room in the Inn, a local church-based homeless ministry, Tuesday night at Trinity United Methodist Church.

George Mayo washes up before dinner while staying at Room in the Inn, a local church-based homeless ministry, Tuesday night at Trinity United Methodist Church. Over the years area churches have come to share the responsibilities for the program. Neighbors surrounding Trinity United Methodist Church have complained and in turn, the city has threatened to cite a code violation if they continue house the program.

As they humbly defied gentle warnings from city and county code inspectors Tuesday night, volunteers at Trinity United Methodist Church joked about what song they would sing if they were hauled to jail.

In other words, you can't rest in peace — either overnight or for eternity — at a place that worships Jesus Christ unless that place sits on at least five acres of God's Creation.

"As far as I can tell, five acres is an arbitrary determination," said Josh Whitehead, planning director with the Memphis and Shelby County Office of Planning and Development.

"It's probably boilerplate language provided by consultants who helped draft the code. The only reason it came to our attention is because the church was trying to be a good neighbor and let folks know what they were planning. So we got a few calls."

A few of the church's neighbors weren't happy with the idea of up to a dozen homeless folks spending the night inside a warm and otherwise empty building dedicated to "Proclaiming God's love by building community and living by the example and teachings of Jesus Christ."

"The biggest concern," said Rob Clark, president of the Evergeen Historic District Association, "is that the Room in the Inn program will increase the traffic of homeless people through the neighborhood and therefore create a safety and crime problem.

"My understanding of the program is that it is designed specifically, and has been operated successfully in other cities, to mitigate the concerns of increased traffic of homeless people in a neighborhood."

Room in the Inn was started by a Catholic priest and four volunteer congregations in Nashville in the winter of 1986. Now more than 180 congregations are involved in sheltering about 1,400 men and women every winter. The program spread to Murfreesboro, Jackson, and finally to Memphis.

Two or three nights a week, from early November till the end of March, church volunteers transport up to a dozen homeless men and women from Downtown to Colonial. They eat dinner together and play cards or board games. They sleep. The church brings them back Downtown by 7 the next morning.

Colonial hosted seven homeless people Tuesday evening,

"We've had no problems and no complaints," said Rev. Lisa Anderson, who founded the Memphis ministry. "The only surprise is how easy it is to do this. These men and women are so exhausted when they get here. They're tired and they're hungry. They just want to eat and go to bed."

Trinity decided to join the program this year, but neighbors' concerns reached code inspectors, who were sympathetic but still put the church on notice.

City Councilman Jim Strickland has scheduled a Town Hall meeting on the matter at 1 p.m. Nov. 17 at Trinity. Anderson and Christiansen plan to request a zoning variance later this month, a process that takes up to four months.

They're not waiting.

"I talked to the volunteers and told them we might want to rethink this," Christiansen said. "They said, ‘No we're going to do it.' "

And so they did it.

"They make you feel like family, they treat you like family," said James Poole, one of Trinity's guests Tuesday. He said he normally spends the night on a loading dock somewhere.

"Those of us who are here, at least for one night, we won't have to worry."

Neither will anyone else.

"We are taking homeless people off the street tonight," Christiansen said. "Those are people the neighborhoods won't have to worry about, the police won't have to worry about, the ER won't have to worry about.

"They'll be safe here inside the church. They'll be gone first thing in the morning. It won't cost the city a penny."